Forum: Management
October 27, 2009
AVOID Tuscany Management
Dear Brooklyn condo owners,
If you are looking for a management company, do not, at any cost, use Tuscany Management. They stole 25,000 from us (collected our common charges for months, and then spent them for their own business/personal use).
It's horrible. I don't want anyone else to ever be in that situation.
We are now dealing with cops and lawyers to get the money back. No fun.
Sincerely,
Brooklyn resident
October 23, 2009
Getting Sec Dep After 5 Yrs
A tenant moved in 5 years ago. At the time of signing the lease, they gave a security deposit check that was never cashed. Now after 5yrs when the renewal lease was signed, landlord wants security deposit. Is it too late to collect from tenant?
October 16, 2009
Management Company for smallcoop
Hi,
My 16 unit coop is looking for new management. Someone prompt, trustworthy, and can manage the books. Our current management can do neither of these things.
Suggestions?
October 6, 2009
Closing Without a Managing Agent
If your co-op is self-managed, who represents the building when an apartment is sold?
What documentation does the building have to provide and whose approvals need to be on these documents?
October 5, 2009
Management for 7-Unit Coop
Our 7 unit coop can no longer self-manage. We currently have a part-time super who basically sweeps and mops up - we do the rest. We are open to hiring a super who can do more daily chores and repairs and a management company to handle the books and deal with contracts. Any suggestions for a reasonable Management company who handles small buildings in NYC? or for alternatives? Only 3 are active in managing the buidling. Thanks.
September 28, 2009
Recs for Property Managers
Anyone have any recommendations for decent Property Managers in Brooklyn? We are a 70+ unit co-op in Brooklyn and are interested in speaking to different management companies. We would prefer companies located in Brooklyn if possible.
September 1, 2009
By-Laws qs. Buying a condo.
Hi,
We are close to signing a contract on a 2 bedroom condo unit in a 3 unit, self-managed brownstone building.
I recently received a copy of the by-laws and it looks like they do not allow subletting of any kind.
I was under the impression co-ops typically enforced this sort of thing. First time buyer, so learning something new every day.
How resolute are these by-laws typically? I thought owning a condo meant it was yours and you could do with it pretty much as you please :)
Any advice much appreciated!
June 30, 2009
Management for a 3-Fam Townhouse
Hi All:
I'm back to square one. I'm an out-of-town landlord who has been managing my building in an ad-hoc fashion, using a combination of tenants for some things and a couple of neighborhood guys for others.
But too many things are falling through the cracks, and I want to switch over to a management company. I thought I had a good vendor lined up, but now feel I'm getting jerked around. (Will not publish their name here at this time, as I may have to go with them in the end).
Does anyone have recommendations for SMALL property management (i.e., a 3-family townhouse, which is not the same as a 10-unit condo)?
Your thoughts are very much appreciated. Thanks!
June 19, 2009
HIGHVIEW MANAGEMENT PROPERTY
We would like to expose Highview Property Management for what they have done to our condominium. We bought our Park Slope condominiums in January 2008. The sponsor hired Highview Property Management to serve our building, this is a short story of what happen to us:
a) They depleted our working capital fund by paying for repairs with this money and for services the sponsor was obligated to pay for. We were forced to function in a deficit since they ALLOWED the sponsor not to pay for his units common charges for months and did not proactively try and collect these past due funds... they did not initiate liens or late fees as per our offering plans calls for. Highview used our moneys with no regard or ethics until there was no more money.
b) They charged us for a 30 hour per week Superintendent at $15 (they only paid our super $7.50 per hour). Our super was hardly in our building, hardly cleaned the building, and caused more damage than good- a perfect segway for the next point:
c) They hired and brought to our building the most unreliable, irresponsible and unprofessional contractors to serve our building; having to pay twice, even three times on several occasions to solve one problem. Highview used to give out our security code to everyone (contractors, deliveries, repairmen) to get into our building since Highview didn't want to bother to come and meet/supervise them, also because the super was never here either. On one occasion a delivery person of janitorial supplies was given our code, gained access to our garage and crashed his delivery van in to our garage door trying to pull in. The guy was fleeing away as we stopped him and called the police. This incident took place back in November 2008- as of today we still trying to collect the money from Highview Property Management. The cleaning supply company paid for the damages to our door and the check was issued to Highview of which was never deposited to our account!
d) Due to their observance of Sabbath, they are incommunicado for the weekend starting early on Friday afternoons with no reliable means of emergency response in place. We had some problems with our building's boiler to which we have had full weekends with no hot water since they don't have a real emergency service on weekends and holidays.
e) We finally were able to fire them due to the fact the contract was with the original sponsor condominium board. But up to this point we still haven't been able to collect most of our bills, documents, and important information pertinent to our building. We need to hire an accountant to retroactively review 1-1/2 years of bills and paperwork for the obvious reasons.
f) We have gotten numerous sanitation tickets for garbage being taken out to early or on wrong days. During many winter storms our sidewalk and driveway have been left unshoveled or salted.
g) Home owners request for documentation needed for re-financing and/or other mortgaged related business goes unanswered in spite of multiple requests.
This is just the short story, it will take pages and pages to recount all the nightmares this company put us through.
June 6, 2009
self-managed condo?
I'm thinking about buying a condo in a 9 unit sponsor building. One stipulation in the contract is that the building will be self-managed, unless the condo board chooses to hire a manager. Since nobody has moved in to the building yet there's no existing condo board. Of course the board could choose to hire a building manager, but maintanence would then naturally go up. Does anybody have experience self-managing their condo building? Is this common? Does it work? I envision all sorts of complications. But one less expense, too...